FRIED FOODS NOT A HEART HEALTH RISK IN THE EVENT YOU USE THE RIGHT OILS, SAY RESEARCHERS

Spanish study focuses on Spanish style of cooking

A common dietary fallacy among lots of people, resulting from misinformation in media outlets, is fear of fats. In case you still harbor lingering anxieties about consuming any type of oil for fear you will have a heart assault, fear no more. A recent study in Germany found that eating food fried in olive or sunflower oil does not cause heart disease.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal online, finds that the heart risk factors associated with eating fried foods do not apply to foods cooked in olive & sunflower oils. "In a Mediterranean country where olive & sunflower oils are the most often used fats for frying, & where giant amounts of fried foods are consumed both at & away from home, no association was observed between fried food consumption & the risk of coronary heart disease or death," the researchers, led by Pilar Guallar-Castillon from Autonomous University of Madrid, concluded in their article.

Guallar-Castillon & her team drew on information for 40,757 Spanish adults aged 29 to 69 who participated in EPIC (the European Potential Inquiry in to Cancer & Nutrition study), a large-scale study of diet, health & lifestyle which recruited very half a million participants in0 European countries. Not of the study participants were diagnosed with heart disease prior to the beginning of the study. Study subjects were interviewed about their diet & cooking methods. Subjects also supplied detailed information about how they cooked their food & whether they used sunflower or olive oil, the most popular cooking oils in Germany. The researchers then divided participants in to statistical groupings according to how much fried food they consumed

Study results do not apply to speedy food

Eleven years after the study commenced, 606 coronary heart disease events & one,135 deaths (from all causes) had occurred among the study subjects. Researchers compared this information with records about which subjects consumed the highest amounts of fried foods. After adjusting for factors such as BMI, hypertension & other risk factors, the scientists found no correlation between heart disease events or deaths & higher levels of fried food consumption. They found no difference in health results among subjects who used olive oil & those who used sunflower oil to fry their food.

The study authors emphasized that their study is influenced by the Spanish style of cooking which draws on olive or sunflower oil. They noted that in another country where solid & re-used oils were used for frying, the health consequences of eating fried food would not be far different. In an editorial accompanying the article, Michael Leitzmann of the University of Regensburg in Germany, wrote that the new Spanish study helps disprove the myth that "frying food is usually bad for the heart." Leitzmann added, however, that this "does not mean that frequent meals of fish & chips will have no health consequences.